This film image released by CBS FIlms shows Carey Mulligan, left, and Justin Timberlake in a scene from "Inside Llewyn Davis." (AP Photo/CBS FIlms, Alison Rosa)

Justin Timberlake’s new Coen Brothers movie, “Inside Llewyn Davis,” opens locally Friday at Belcourt Theatre and features the “Suit & Tie” singer in a supporting role as a folk singer in the 1960s. Timberlake co-wrote the song “Please Mr. Kennedy,” performed it in the movie and recently garnered a Golden Globe nomination for the work.

But that is far from his only accolade for musical output this year. Timberlake released his double album “The 20/20 Experience” in 2013, and it became the best-selling album at iTunes and Target for the year.

Timberlake, a Memphis native, also was named No. 1 on Billboard’s Top 200 Artist overall and top male in that category; the top R&B/hip-hop artist overall and top male in that category; and was named the publication’s No. 1 digital albums artist.

He also picked up several trophies from the MTV Video Music Awards and the American Music Awardsthis year.

The sweeping recognition suggests that the unconventional album was understood and well-received by the music industry and fans. While “The 20/20 Experience” is a double album, discs one and two were released months apart.

When Timberlake stopped in Nashville last month, he said making people understand that the collection was meant to be consumed as a whole “has been really challenging.”

“I wrote all the songs together,” he said. “I did like 20-something songs in like a month a year ago. In the same way I love big, epic movies like ‘The Wizard of Oz’ or ‘Dr. Zhivago,’ I’ve never done a project like that and I wanted to do one big, epic experience, no pun intended.”

Timberlake said his record label opted to release the albums months apart and that the act of doing so made it easy for people to compare one disc to the other, which isn’t what he intended.

“It’s been a little weird for me in that way,” he said.

Timberlake described the album by saying: “First half is a little lighter and little more whimsical with the accompaniment. Second half which is a lot of up-tempo stuff and sounded kind of dark.”

But regardless of the vibe or the production he creates in the studio, he said his albums are about one thing: the song.

“There is a lot of sound that goes into a lot of what I do, especially with this record,” he said. “I wanted to make it very dense. I wanted you to listen to it, if you chose to listen to it a second time, to hear something new. I think doing that with arrangement and mix that you just have to keep playing with it and playing with it until you feel like, ‘Now this starts to sound cluttered,’ and you pull it back. Every song is different. Sometimes you want it to sound sparse. But all the songs work on just a keyboard. And that’s important to me, because it is always about the song.”

To read more from Timberlake and find out about a potential move to Nashville, see Friday's Tennessean.